The month of July

Met up with YiHui (Steve) on the 1st July for our annual meet up. πŸ™‚ Time passed so fast~! It’s been more than a year since I last went to USS with him!

Meet up with the ex-BMI people! And sudden surprise appearance from Marcus as he join us for dinner. It’s been a while since I last met him. It’s always nice to meet up with people and share.Β  Hope we will meet up real soon!

I bought a pirate stitch when I was out for dinner with Uncle Jeremy and his gf. =] New love~ ^^

And then it’s Derrick‘s birthday in the office! This is his birthday card that we made for him.

A happy man. πŸ™‚

And I bought my bunnies! San San family. But the small one is gone. That’s so sad. =[

Ok, that’s my July.

23.07.2011 – Fireworks

Finally managed to take some photos of the fireworks for NDP Preview yesterday evening! Meet up with Zu Ming and his wife, Ying Ying, for the session.

It’s really amazing how Facebook connects people. In case you don’t know who is he, Zu Ming is my ex-secondary school friend whom I never spoke with during those times. It’s until recently I added him in Facebook and we started talking about photography and there we go, meet up for the first time! Really can’t imagine how did it happen!

Anyways, his friends was already at One Fullerton Starbucks to standby, and we went there to meet his friends. And the fireworks are really pretty! Makes me a happy girl, and, finally I got to know the correct mode for the photo shoot. Zu Ming was telling me about the “Bulb” mode, and I was Β like, ‘got such mode ah?’. Totally embarrassing. So one of his friends helped me with it. So I set my shutter speed to 10, ISO to 100 with f/11. The fireworks are not full because I was too near and it was too late for me to shift to somewhere else. And I hope to go down for another fireworks shot this weekend! And hopes that it will turn out better. =]

Here are some of my better shots for that day. Please give me some advice or remarks so I can do it better! =]

Spree!

I never thought that trying out 15 dresses in one go can be so tiring.

Not kidding. I was trying out the dresses one after another after the 5th piece, and I can feel the tireness. Spent almost $190 (including shipping fee) for the dresses! Dividing among, them it’s about $15.90 per piece! Dirty cheap, of course buying from BKK will be even more cheaper! I shall post the pictures of my dresses soon. LOL

Meet ups and my new love Instax Mini 50S

Meant to update this post like 2 weeks ago and I was busy (with I don’t know what), thus updating it today (finally). We had BBQ 2 weeks ago for Shun Jie‘s first book out!

Chin chow for dessert.

Nata De Coco! For my Agar-agar

5 packets of Agar Agar!

The mini Agar-agar factory at Arene‘s house!

That’s me and my San San!

Arene!

The agar-agar!

My new love! Instax Mini 50S. Dearest bought it for me.. I asked him why suddenly buy for me, he say he got the sudden ‘urge’ to buy for me. I say “Great! I hope he will continue to have such ‘urge’ to buy things for me.” LOL!

My new love

Happy birthday to little Faith! Her parents celebrated her 1st birthday in advance over the last weekend. And I couldn’t join in the celebration earlier because I gotta work until 14:30 hrs, but nevertheless, I reached their house about 15:30hrs. In time for some mahjong session. Can really sense the change in the way Gavin speak now. Changing for the good of course. Lesser vulgarities or perhaps no vulgarities during the mahjong session which is good. I guess it’s good to have children, they give bonding and change your bad habits. It makes the mahjong session a pleasant one. πŸ˜€ It’s still a pretty good session even though I didn’t really win. At least, I played. Had dinner at their house and the beef is good! After everyone has left, we chatted with Christine and Alan about our wedding dinner. Alan was giving us suggestions and keep telling Dearest it’s time to hold the dinner soon. Having a customary wedding dinner is a matter of time, so we might as well have it at the soonest possible time. Money is an issue, but I am sure by God’s grace, we will be able to overcome the money issues. =]

Bought something to go along with my new love! Tamron SP 70-300mm f4-5.6 VC USD lens. After many attempts to get quotations from various shops, only MS color and Orient Photo replied my email (can I assume the rest are not keen to do my business?), MS color quoted the best price ($685) whereas Orient Photo quoted me $750 for the same lens!

A big ‘kiasu’ so I bought 2 types of filter, one is CPL and another one is merely UV protection filter so it’s like DOUBLE PROTECTION for my lens. Call me ‘kiasu’ but I rather spend $100 on 2 filters than spending $700 again for the lens. That’s provided if I am really that unlucky, dropped my lens and spoil it. Anyways, CPL helps to ‘improve’ the colors of the photos while UV protects UV. Hahaha. Ok, that sounds a little rubbish and not so ‘professional’. Dearest always say ‘you are not professional so buy cheap one can liao.’. But I think this got nothing to do with being a professional or not. I mean, if I wanna get something, it’s always better choice to get the newer than buying something that’s old which perhaps after awhile you have to sell it for a lesser price, and then buy the newer one. That’s why I always seek people’s opinion when I couldn’t make a decision on which one to buy. However, because he’s not into this, he doesn’t understand WHY I always choose to buy latter. The thing is, cheap doesn’t always means good and durable. But in his own opinion, I should always get the cheaper things. He was comparing the King Koil Silk Royal Bedding series to my zoom lens. He say he rather spend the money on the bedding series than buying the zoom lens because he can sleep on it everyday, whereas I don’t take photos everyday.

Yea, this is my new love. A little on the long side. It’s a zoom lens. =]

And this is the tripod that comes with the camera. Honestly, I didnt really look at it when I got it until last night.

It’s the ball bearing one, with a little compass. How cool is it. πŸ™‚ It’s easier to use than the old school one, and I just mount my camera + zoom lens. Double confirmed that this tripod is not very lousy. This means that I can save money on tripod! Yay~ And now, I have to spend money to buy the remote control for the shutter. Noticed that when I mount on the tripod and tried to take some picture, my focus will shift by a little bit. I supposed the remote control will solve my problem. Asking Suzy to help me with it. And yes, I can go bird park with Suzy for photo shoot! YAY~

And my first attempt using the zoom lens for the moon shoot. The one I posted on Facebook looks a little grainy. Smaller one looks better. LOL. Perhaps I will try again when I got time. πŸ˜€

That’s all for now. And I need time to post some pictures I took from Darling’s wedding a week ago. =X

Alicia’s Hen’s Brunch

Introducing the bride-to-be in 1 day’s time: Alicia! Everyone must be really excited about her big day which is in 1 day’s time. Everyone is busy preparing stuffs, getting in shape to be her Sister for the big day. Anyways, they organizated a Hen’s brunch for her to celebrate her last days of being single.

Meeting point: Oomphatico’s at Tanglin Mall

Do what: She gotta collect well wishes from 6 strangers for her Big card that we got for her.

The girls, waiting for Alicia to have her card written by the 2 ladies.

Next, a group of 4 persons to write on her card.

The baby got the girls’ attention instead.

Us. Congratulation to Alicia on her big day!

Beautiful Thursday!

A big welcome to my new addition, my Labbit named San San. In case you are wondering, San San is actually hokkien which means skinny. πŸ˜›

Took a day off yesterday! So I decided to drop by my sister’s house to see baby Estelle! Isn’t she adorable? Anyways, we decided to head to town for lunch and my sister can do some shopping for the baby. What a relaxing Thursday!

My sister say little Estelle likes sleep in this position. Just like Alyssa when she was a baby. Or babies like to sleep in this manner? Hmmm..

On our way to town, I was told to sit in the middle since there are two baby seats in the car. And lucky me, I’m skinny enough. Do you know how much space was left when you have two baby seats at the back? Haha!

She’s soundly asleep.

High tea at TWG~ I am not a tea person but the tea there is nice! Unlike the one I had in Taipei. The one I had in Taipei is chinese tea, the one I had in TWG is more English tea. Which one is better? I think it’s all about preference! And I think both is fine. The different thing about chinese and English tea is, Chinese you brew the tea yourself and you enjoy the process of doing it. I had my fun brewing my own tea when we went up to Mao Kong (猫空) to enjoy the scenery and the breeze. Totally different experience all together. πŸ˜€

And now my sister wants to play Patapon. She say the music is irritating but then once you start playing, the music just imprint into your mind and makes you think about it. Haha!

Some warm chocolate cake with ice cream (tea flavour) on top. Not too bad, but you might consider sharing because the chocolate is very thick!

Jie Fu had this muffin.

There is no place without Chou Chou. πŸ˜€

See this little baby still sleeping thru out the lunch till high tea session! πŸ™‚

Me & my sister!

And our day just end here. Fast isn’t it? Time passed so fast and then it’s time for us to go home because they have to fetch Alyssa from the child care center. It’s really cool to spend time like this; just by doing nothing! No places to rush, no assignments to do (ok, I do have and it’s due on next Monday!!) and relax! But it’s also time to come back to reality – WORK and STUDY. Really can’t wait for December to come; that is if our Hong Kong trip is confirmed (nothing is confirmed until you buy the plane ticket!!).

And then I went to meet bf for dinner. Steamboat at Roxy Square basement one. Not too bad, but it’s not buffet. With air con and the space, I think it’s still not too bad. The chicken soup is good, the tom yum is not spicy, that’s why the bf insisted on eating this. Tom yum is my favourite. πŸ˜€

Birthday Celebration!

I am a bad girl, because I overslept till 4p.m then wake up! 😦 I will repent on this.

It’s birthday celebration time! And we celebrated Wilson‘s mum’s birthday a.k.a my MIL (not used to calling her MIL. Hehe). We just had a simple cake cutting session at home before heading out to NEX for dinner at Sushi Tei (yes, I got my membership card liao!). Introducing them my fav (sashimi salad). LOL~ After dinner, we went to NTUC for a stroll, and bought some grocery back. =] That’s all for my Sunday.

Oh yes, Xiao Blue Blue and Chou Chou also join in to celebrate! It was epic when Auntie say Chou Chou didnt wish her happy birthday! Hehe. Everyone loves Chou Chou hor! πŸ˜‰